Quote:
Originally Posted by Boreas
"Not in labor force" doesn't mean unemployed, whell, and 8.6 million doesn't equal 93 million.
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No kidding, but it fails to address the essential information provided. The labor participation rate essentially "crashed" in 2008 and has yet to recover. Your post makes for lots of conjecture but fails to explain why. Now, to be fair, it labor force participation rate has been rising steadily since the mid-sixties. Two income households started to become more prevalent, and I suspect that the increasing participation of women lead to the increasing participation rates that peaked around 2000 or so.
However, the last time participation rates were this low, we were still recovering from Watergate, we were wearing WIN (Whip Inflation Now) buttons, and suffering through Carter - induced malaise. The question is, why? The "experts" told us the recession was over in 2009, yet the participation rate has continued to decline even against modestly recovering unemployment numbers.
Check the numbers here:
http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet